Damascus, SANA- “Words fail to describe our feelings about liberating Syria from the tyrannical regime. We have been waiting for this liberation for decades, and thank God it has been achieved despite the heavy price paid by our people. Congratulations to the Syrians for their freedom,” said Dr. Zaki Lababidi, former President of the Syrian American Council (SAC) and board member of the American Coalition for Syria.
In an interview with SANA, Lababidi added “The new Syria has become for all its people. Syrian communities and expatriates around the world can now contribute to rebuilding what the criminal regime has destroyed over 54 years of tyranny and injustice.”
Lababidi noted that the overthrow of the criminal regime is a historic and pivotal event in the Middle East region, and this event will open the horizon for restoring Syria’s relations with different countries of the world, after the regime isolated it with its foolish policies, and it will also affect all international relations.
Lababidi said “Congratulations to the Syrians for their freedom from this regime. Any Syrian in all parts of the world can now contribute to rebuilding what had been destroyed by the former regime.”
Lababidi added that after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011, he played a role in providing medical services and organizing medical relief campaigns, both inside Syria and abroad, through his activity within the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), in addition to his important role as Vice President of the Syrian American Council before becoming its president in 2018.
Lababidi noted that he was also one of the organizers of the Washington Conference in 2017, which aimed to deliver a message from the Syrian community in the US rejecting Bashar al-Assad’s continued rule and achieving a political transition through the implementation of Security Council Resolution 2254.
According to Dr. Lababidi, the “Syrian-American organizations contributed to the US administration’s approval of the “Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act” in 2019, the provisions of which included strict sanctions on all entities, companies and individuals who provide funding and support to the criminal regime to help it target and kill its people.”
Lababidi said that the former regime always used to claim that the “Caesar Act” was the reason for the suffering of the Syrian people, while it knew deep down that it had been lying to its people and to the world, because this law excludes humanitarian aid and everything related to food and medicine.
Lababidi pointed out that the overthrown regime resorted to drug trafficking to sustain itself after it suffered from cash shortage, but the “Captagon 1 and Captagon 2” laws came to tighten the noose on it even more and contributed, along with the “Caesar Act”, to the collapse of the regime.
Dr. Lababidi considered that the main goal and priority currently for the Syrian community and Syrian- American organizations is to work to lift the sanctions on Syria and cancel the “Caesar Act.”
Lababidi stressed that it is very important for the Syrian community in the US to lift the sanctions on Syria, which is in need for investments and to re-engage with the global banking system to facilitate the movement of money, facilitate investment, and participate in the reconstruction of what had been destroyed by the former regime.
He underlined the need for communication between the current Syrian government and the US government to reopen the embassy in Washington as soon as possible, and for this goal to be achieved quickly because it will reflect positively on the Syrian state, in addition to reactivating the Syrian mission to the United Nations in New York to convey the voice of the new Syria to all countries of the world.
Latifa /Reem /Khadega/Ruaa al-Jazaer
